This is the strangest NFL Draft and offseason ever. Why that’s good for the Chiefs
Preparation for the strangest draft in the strangest offseason has NFL executives taking film breaks to help home-school kids and basements transformed into satellite war rooms. NFL people are a paranoid bunch anyway, and now they can add What if the teenagers upstairs are taking up too much bandwidth on draft night? to their list of worries.
Through all of the unknowns one truth is emerging:
The Chiefs are built for this. All of it.
The COVID-19 pandemic is more important than football, more important than sports. We all understand that. Thousands are dying and more face economic pain. This column does not ignore that or in any way equate what’s important to football with what’s important in real life.
But with these disclaimers aside, and taking the narrow view of football here, this historic set of circumstances has positioned the NFL’s richest to get richer. Or, if we can strain the analogy a little more, at least maintain their wealth.
The only constraints for the Super Bowl-champion Chiefs seem to be precious cap space and not picking in next week’s draft until 32nd overall, but two points are worth emphasizing.
First, the cap is malleable, and not just because Chris Jones’ scheduled $16 million cap hit can be softened with a long-term deal. Good front offices always have money hidden under metaphorical rocks, and the Chiefs have enough ways to create space that a team that recently had just $177 of cap space is planning on soon giving the largest (and perhaps best-earned) contract in league history to Patrick Mahomes.
Second, picking 32nd overall means you just had a parade.
When compared to their peers, the Chiefs are superiorly positioned to burst through the current storm and emerge on the other side — whenever that is, and whatever it looks like — with an even bigger advantage.
The NFL is full of front offices and coaching staffs griping about the new setup. People in sports — and this is especially true in football — can be slaves to habit. Those habits are now blown to bits, and the hassle of learning new technology and altering communication is an added stress upon an already stressful profession.
By all accounts, however, the Chiefs are breezing through.
“It’s almost become commonplace now,” Chiefs general manager Brett Veach said. “Just wake up in the morning, come down, we have the ability to record all the players that we interview. So there’s a lot of times I’m jumping on these chats live and interacting. And there’s a lot of times where I’m working through some video and I can go back in the morning and just click on yesterday’s videos.”
The advantages grow from there — in both number and size. The most significant is that NFL offseason practices are almost certainly not going to happen. New coaching staffs cannot meet with new teams. Playbook installations are limited to tablets. There is no real-time learning here, no opportunity to see and feel how a play is executed with the men who will be executing it.
Put it this way: The Chiefs return 20 of 22 starters and their entire coaching staff, including all of their coordinators. They will play only four opponents — the Raiders, Ravens, Bills and Saints — who return the same head coach, offensive and defensive coordinators and starting quarterback they had in 2019.
In other words, the Chiefs were already getting a head start on the rest of the league with a team that won the Super Bowl.
Now, most of their opponents will also be dragged at least temporarily by making major changes in an offseason without practice or even face-to-face meetings.
The Chiefs won’t be exactly the same, of course. Andy Reid’s greatest strength might be his refusal to stagnate. Those offseason practices and meetings have value. Remember when he was annoyed that Chris Jones missed OTAs last year?
But at least with the Chiefs those changes will be communicated between players and coaches who already have a working relationship, and know each other’s strengths and holes, and what to expect.
Continuity has never had more value. The Chiefs have more continuity than virtually any team in recent history.
“This kind of played out working out for us,” Veach said. “We didn’t get this (disrupted offseason) and then say, ‘Alright, let’s just go after our guys and continuity.’ Our intention was, ‘Let’s retain our guys, and let’s keep continuity’. And then the format that’s now real just happened to fall in line with being a very workable format for us.”
One more way the Chiefs are well-positioned is that with a talented, relatively deep and relatively young roster, they don’t have a lot of positions so weakened as to force a reach.
John Dorsey took a lot of grief for his cap management, and some of it was warranted. But the Chiefs were desperate for a quarterback, so they overpaid a little in salary for Alex Smith. The Chiefs were desperate for receivers, so they overpaid a lot in an extension for Dwayne Bowe.
Sammy Watkins’ deal was too expensive, but it’s since been renegotiated and the Chiefs will free up millions off dollars in dead space after this season. Maybe a contract like Frank Clark’s will age poorly. But we’re not there yet.
The Chiefs had potential code orange-level needs at cornerback and running back, but they addressed that by signing Antonio Hamilton and DeAndre Washington and re-signing Bashaud Breeland.
They could still take a corner with that first-round pick, or perhaps they’ll address needs at linebacker (particularly one with coverage skills) or the offensive line (particularly in the interior). The Star’s Herbie Teope reported the Chiefs made an offer to Pro Bowl guard Andrus Peat, so we know they want to improve there.
Here’s how you know the Chiefs are catching breaks: cornerback, linebacker and offensive line are among this draft class’ deepest positions.
Rich get richer, indeed.
This story was originally published April 17, 2020 at 5:00 AM.